Dan Hilden aiding the short (easily avoidable) pen...
Description
This route is the complete N->S traverse of the range, summiting the Northeast, North, Middle, and South peaks. The route will require carrying over, likely with ice axes and crampons. It begins and end on glaciers, although for us it began on the Chickamin and ended on the Blue Glacier.
P1. 5.10- up splitter hand crack left of a dihedral with a crack in it. Beautiful grey rock. There’s a great looking finger crack just to the left of this as well. Belay at the ridge crest
p2 was an easy traverse on the crest
p3 drop down to the left/east side of the crest and climb back up - really cool corners and finger cracks (don't miss it) 5.7/8
p4?, a slab with lots of cracks in it.. looks the one on N ridge of stuart... face climb here and past these, cracks
p5 one easy traverse scramble to the base of the steep golden wall (kinda rightish along the crest)
p6 5.10- climbing on a steep golden granite headwall. Awesome cracks and face holds, well protected, wild overhung finish (big holds)
p7 Easy pitch around to the West/right edge of the crest where the NE peak steepens
p8 The NE peak was climbed around on the right (west) side and summited from the far side (south side of the summit)... up a prominent chimney thing, and out through a hidden hole in the back of an enormous roof... pretty fun 5.8/9
p9-10 After rapping off the NE peak (20m rap) we simuled along the left/east side past a gendarme or two 5.6? for twopitches until the climbing got harder as we went up the North peak.
P11-14?This climbing was really cool, with 4 or 5 pitches of climbing that alternated steep and slabby steps up the N ridge crest of the N peak. Somewhere in here was a short steep 5.10- hand crack. We also used a small aid pendulum in here about 2 pitches below the summit when our steep face crack died out. This was shortly after a perfect low-angle #3 camalot hand crack, but I think by planning ahead one could easily avoid the dead-end crack.
p15 From the top of the North peak, it was one short rappel then we downclimbed to the main notch, and climbed one beautiful pitch of 5.9 up the crest from the notch. Climb along the left/east side of the crest up good corner cracks, then back along the crest to the middle summit. Downclimbing (40m down?) and a 45m rap from the middle peak summit got us to the next notch.
P16-17 two pitches of low fifth (worse rock, still ok thought) to the last notch before the South peak.
P18 One last pitch of mid to the top of the south peak. Generally along the crest, but follow easiest natural path.
From the South Peak summit, you can make a 33m rap southward to the last notch past the south peak, or a 30m rappel and downclimb the last 10 feet (not super hard, just don't fall) and from there, one 26m rappel reaches the blue glacier on the east side of the range.
Location
To find the start of where we began, just walk along the Chickamin Glacier to the north, well past the NE peak, and you almost get to where a dirty gulley of bad rock more or less ends the ridgeline's continuous run. At this point you can tell that the top of the ridge will be a pitch from the snow. We did a pitch that began off large squarish blocks, just to the right of this broken dike/gulley.
Protection
Double rack of cams from yellow Alien to gold camalot. Single #3, #4, single finger/tips cams, and a set of nuts.
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